This week, try to pay attention to how your teacher asks questions and facilitates discussion in his or her classes. What types of questions does your CT ask? Are most of the questions asking students to relay facts or textbook definitions (recall) or to apply a concept to a new situation or compare it to another concept (application or analysis). Does your teacher ever encourage his or her students to be critical or skeptical? If so, when and how? Does your CT ever ask students to provide evidence to support a claim or explain their thinking? Does your teacher facilitate classroom discussion so that students are expressing scientific ideas to other students? Finally, does your CT vary the type of questions he or she asks depending on the level of the class, or the perceived ability of the student? Remember to reflect on what types of classroom discourse you want to foster in your classroom, how you will go about doing this, and why.
Observations:
During Ms. D's classes today she starts with the students sharing their homework poems with each other and as a part of that reviewing the vocabulary. As she has some studnets read aloud she asks other students to note which vocab they used in the poems. They took a quick quiz on the vocabulary then reviewed the symbiotic vocabulary they would need for the next activity. While doing the students described the three relationships to each other at lab tables, Ms. D asked questions on how the different relationships effected each of the animals involved. The students then worked on an activity reviewing 15 various symbiotic relationships at their lab tables. They had to identify each type of symbiosis and also explain to each other the benifits, or detriments each got. The class as whole then reviewed each situation and discussed why they felt that way about each using evidence from the cards they had read. The last thing in class was handing out and fielding questions on a feild trip.
Reflections:
Ms. D used a lot fo recall questions at the begining of the class which helped the students to review the topics they had been working on. Her questions in relation to the poems being read aloud also helped focus the students and for her to determine if they were on task. The discussion of three types of symbiosis also reviews the topics/concepts they will need for the activity.They then use concept application in the disscusion of the the 15 situations they were presented with in their lab tables and discussing with the class they had to use evidence from the situations to back up their reasoning. Each class was generally the same with only wording altering rather than difficulty of questions with each class. I also got to go around to the groups and was able to ask questions that tied into past topics and made them critically think about their decisions of the situations. I will try to relate present and previous topics in my own classroom and ask questions that aid recall as well as application of concepts. If I can do that as Ms. D has done and add in the dimention of relating to previous topics, and challenging students who are off task then it would help guide them furthur into the concepts.
Class Topic: Quiz and Symbiosis
Grade:6
Observed by: Mary Ackerman
Observations:
During Ms. D's classes today she starts with the students sharing their homework poems with each other and as a part of that reviewing the vocabulary. As she has some studnets read aloud she asks other students to note which vocab they used in the poems. They took a quick quiz on the vocabulary then reviewed the symbiotic vocabulary they would need for the next activity. While doing the students described the three relationships to each other at lab tables, Ms. D asked questions on how the different relationships effected each of the animals involved. The students then worked on an activity reviewing 15 various symbiotic relationships at their lab tables. They had to identify each type of symbiosis and also explain to each other the benifits, or detriments each got. The class as whole then reviewed each situation and discussed why they felt that way about each using evidence from the cards they had read. The last thing in class was handing out and fielding questions on a feild trip.Reflections:
Ms. D used a lot fo recall questions at the begining of the class which helped the students to review the topics they had been working on. Her questions in relation to the poems being read aloud also helped focus the students and for her to determine if they were on task. The discussion of three types of symbiosis also reviews the topics/concepts they will need for the activity.They then use concept application in the disscusion of the the 15 situations they were presented with in their lab tables and discussing with the class they had to use evidence from the situations to back up their reasoning. Each class was generally the same with only wording altering rather than difficulty of questions with each class. I also got to go around to the groups and was able to ask questions that tied into past topics and made them critically think about their decisions of the situations. I will try to relate present and previous topics in my own classroom and ask questions that aid recall as well as application of concepts. If I can do that as Ms. D has done and add in the dimention of relating to previous topics, and challenging students who are off task then it would help guide them furthur into the concepts.Class Topic: Quiz and Symbiosis
Grade:6
Observed by: Mary Ackerman